It Is In Us All

Actor Anto­nia Camp­bell-Hugh­es’ writ­ing and direc­to­r­i­al debut presents an ambi­tious por­trait of male emo­tion­al repres­sion and the unset­tling ways those emo­tions can sud­den­ly spill out. With­in the film’s first five min­utes Lon­don busi­ness­man Hamish Con­si­dine (Cos­mo Jarvis) is involved in a car crash, land­ing him in the hos­pi­tal and leav­ing a teenage boy dead.

The acci­dent occurs while Hamish is on his way to the coastal town of Done­gal, Ire­land, intend­ing to sell a prop­er­ty left to him by his deceased aunt. While this nar­ra­tive set-up tends to be the incit­ing inci­dent of many a hor­ror film, the ghosts that actu­al­ly haunt the inher­it­ed sea­side cot­tage are of the high­ly sym­bol­ic type, and best talked through with a therapist.

Despite his injuries, the stub­born Hamish decides to check him­self out of the hos­pi­tal and car­ry on with his orig­i­nal plan. Jarvis offers his most con­vinc­ing act­ing as Hamish tries to pop his dis­lo­cat­ed shoul­der back into place and employs craft super glue to stitch togeth­er a gash on his fore­arm. Upon find­ing a reveal­ing Polaroid in the house, he begins to seek answers about his past, find­ing clues in local townspeople. 

In the days that fol­low, Hamish strikes up a friend­ship with Evan (Rhys Man­nion), the sur­viv­ing pas­sen­ger of the acci­dent. Anger and guilt start to sur­face as their com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship takes shape. Man­nion deliv­ers an unset­tling per­for­mance – a cap­ti­vat­ing depic­tion of what it looks like to grieve the inex­plic­a­ble with­in the con­fines of mas­culin­i­ty. Despite the actors’ best efforts, the large­ly under­writ­ten char­ac­ters side­track Camp­bell-Hugh­es’ por­trait of bereave­ment. At best, it is a styl­is­tic choice for the view­er to per­ceive the char­ac­ters as frac­tured as they them­selves felt; at worst, it’s lazy writing.

The most enjoy­able aspect of the film is Piers McGrail’s brood­ing cin­e­matog­ra­phy: still shots of misty rolling hills; a rocky coast­line; and emp­ty coun­try roads car­ry the film’s chill­ing tone. McGrail cap­i­talis­es on Ireland’s stun­ning land­scape and brings sev­er­al post­card-wor­thy shots to the screen. There’s a sear­ing image of a wrecked car ablaze at the bot­tom of a hill. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the stun­ning cin­e­matog­ra­phy is over­shad­owed by incon­gru­ous scenes, includ­ing a dance sequence in an emp­ty club with harsh red lighting. 

Evan in a last-ditch effort of con­nec­tion, Hamish haunt­ing­ly asserts ​“it is in all of us and you found it,” namecheck­ing the title of the film. The film fails to answer what exact­ly it is, and instead leaves view­ers grasp­ing for vague sen­ti­ments. The film ends sud­den­ly, refus­ing to offer any sim­ple clo­sure. That ini­tial sense of frus­tra­tion is soft­ened by the fact that it’s actu­al­ly the first time we feel like we’re real­ly in Hamish’s shoes.